Nov. 25, 2013. The holidays are steadily creeping up on us and before we know it, our gift shopping will need to be finished, wrapped, and then bestowed upon the lucky recipients. But in the flurry of giving and receiving gifts, sometimes its hard to recall who gave us what. How do we give a gift that is going to stand out in the crown and never blend into the blur of holiday wrappings and boxes? What is going to make it truly unique and special? And in the flurry of sales and bargain shopping, how are you going to also make sure you’re getting a great price?
The Blue Ridge ArtSpace has the perfect solution to the seemingly impossible, a wonderful handmade gift which has been created by a local artisan, and at a very comparable price to that which you’d pay in any retail store for an item which is one of hundreds or even thousands of a kind. Even better, many of these items are going to be featured in a Black Friday/Brown Saturday sale this weekend.
The Blue Ridge ArtSpace is the home of the Watauga County Arts Council and features a gift shop which carries a juried blend of gifts varying from the practical to the purely for the sake of enjoyment works of art. You can deck your fireplace out with handmade pokers, set your table with pottery fresh out of the kilns of local potters, fill a hand-woven basket with whatever you like and adorn your Christmas tree with slumped glass ornaments.
You can wear necklaces, rings, earrings and bracelets from local artisans and keep warm with hand-knitted hats, gloves, and scarves or even a shawl. Or perhaps you’d prefer a felted scarf or even a felted pin to adorn your winter coat and that unique hand-made purse which has no twin anywhere on the planet.
Maybe you would like to bestow a hand knitted dress on that special girl in your life or give your nieces and nephews cuddly pillow blankets. These are only a few of the more practical treasures you find in our gift shop.
And then there are the things we enjoy because they’re beautiful such as paintings, drawings, sketches, small sculptures, and even greeting cards from the hands of our talented artists. And the best part of giving a handmade gift is the fact that you are giving a one of a kind gift which is not quite like anything else anyone might have. So you can be assured that your gift is going to not only be unique, but is going to remain in the heart and the mind as something special chosen for them by you.
Because the gift shop is a project of the Arts Council, artists receive the majority of the proceeds. The Gift Shop of Blue Ridge ArtSpace is staffed by a team of volunteers and artists whose work is available for purchase.
On Black Friday and Brown Saturday, the hours will be extended to 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Regular hours are 11 a.m.-6 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and 2-6 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday. The Blue Ridge ArtSpace is located at the intersection of Shadowline Drive and State Farm Road at 377 Shadowline Drive.